Read Online The Adept Book 3 The Templar Treasure by Katherine Kurtz, Deborah Turner Harris - Free Book Online

setting aside the notebook he had been looking at and leaning in to open the desk drawer. As he bent to peer inside, feeling toward the back among the untidy piles of envelopes and index cards, McLeod conducted the same sort of search in the drawers on the left.
    The elusive address book turned up in the top drawer on the right. Adam flipped through it briefly, illogically hoping that a name would pique his attention, then handed it to McLeod.
    “See what you can do with that,” he said, picking up the stack of notebooks. “If you can come up with a list of initials in the next hour or two, I’ll ask Peter to have a look at it when we break for lunch. Meanwhile, the address book may provide some preliminary guesses.”
    As McLeod moved a yellow pad closer and pulled a pen from an inside coat pocket, Adam took the stack of notebooks over to an. armchair nearer the window, where he settled down for a serious read. The most recent one had only half a dozen entries, mainly having to do with background on seals similar to the one until recently in Nathan’s possession. Apparently Nathan had recently received confirmation of his own Seal’s antiquity.
    Prepared for a long and probably fruitless search, Adam set the notebook aside and picked up the next most recent one. As he flipped to the end, intending to work backwards from the material he had already read, the notebook fell open to a letter-folded piece of paper tucked snugly into the crease of the binding. It proved to be a photocopy of a letter from a Dr. Albrecht Steiner, in the art history department of the Sorbonne, to someone named Henri Gerard at a Paris address. It was dated the previous March.
    “Noel, do the initials ‘H.G.’ appear on any of your cards?” Adam asked, as he skimmed over the typewritten French with growing interest.
    “Yes, quite a few,” McLeod replied. “What have you got?”
    “A copy of a letter to a Henri Gerard from the Sorbonne,” Adam replied. “It appears to be a report on a metal sample taken from Nathan’s Seal and sent to their labs for—well, now.”
    McLeod looked up. “What does it say?”
    “Well, unless my French has totally failed me, the man who wrote this letter dates the piece from around 950 B.C.—what’s known as the First Temple Period. He apparently was working from detailed photographs of the Seal. And listen to this,” he said, translating. “Chemical analysis of the sample provided is compatible with bronze samples taken from the prehistoric mineworks at Tell el-Kheleifeh, more popularly known as King Solomon’s Mines.”
    “King Solomon’s Mines?” McLeod repeated. “Adam, do you think the stolen Seal really is the Seal of Solomon?”
    Adam shook his head. “I wouldn’t go that far, based on the evidence I’ve seen so far. But I wouldn’t rule out the possibility, either. I wonder what other intriguing tidbits we’re going to find. Oh, Nathan, I wish you could have told me more about what’s going on . . .”
    They carried on with their research for the remainder of the morning, until Peter Fiennes came to summon them downstairs for lunch. Lawrence had gone to the airport with Peter’s wife to collect Nathan’s sister and her family, so they were only four at table.
    “What can you tell me about Henri Gerard?” Adam asked, over green salad and grilled cheese sandwiches washed down with a crisp Riesling. “I gather that he was one of your father’s researchers.”
    Peter exchanged a glance with his mother, who was looking reassuringly composed as she settled into her first full day of widowhood.
    “What makes you ask about him?” Peter replied.
    “Just that I found a copy of a letter to him. Apparently he had lab tests run on a metal sample taken from the Seal.”
    He showed the letter around while he related the general findings of the report.
    “Aside from the information being very interesting, though, it’s the name that interests me,” he said, as he took the letter back.